2003 Château Bastor-Lamontagne Sauternes Bordeaux France Wine Tasting Note

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2003
89
Light for the vintage, this has a lot of charm. It is perfect to pair with savory dishes or serve as an aperitif, due to its orange, tropical, floral and honeyed tones.

Light for the vintage, this has a lot of charm. It is perfect to pair with savory dishes or serve as an aperitif, due to its orange, tropical, floral and honeyed tones.

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When to Drink Chateau Bastor Lamontagne, Anticipated Maturity, Decanting Time

Chateau Bastor Lamontagne can be enjoyed on the young side with no decanting. In fact, it is delicious and quite a treat young, even on release!

However, like all great wines, Chateau Bastor Lamontagne is much better with age and does not reach full maturity until it's between 10-25 years of age, or in some years, perhaps even longer in the best vintages! That is when the magic happens! But that is unrealistic for 99% of the world's wine drinkers. So, enjoy it on any special occasion that calls for it.

Of course, the wine is sweet, but there is so much, incredible, racy acidity, the wine always feels fresh, and never cloying, which makes it quite fun to enjoy young. With Chateau Bastor Lamontagne and frankly, all Sauternes, the temperature is more important than decanting.

Serving and Decanting, Chateau Bastor Lamontagne, with Wine and Food Pairings

Chateau Bastor Lamontagne is best served at 14 degrees Celsius, 57 degrees Fahrenheit. The cool, almost cellar temperature gives the wine more freshness and lift. The wine will naturally warm in the glass, while it develops more aromatic complexities and fleshes out.

Chateau Bastor Lamontagne can be served with seafood dishes, especially shellfish, lobster, crab, and oysters on the half shell. Foie gras is a perfect pairing with its natural sweet, salty and savory characteristics. Chateau Bastor Lamontagne can also be paired with roasted chicken, veal, and pork dishes that are either spicy or prepared with a touch of sweetness. Spicy Asian cuisine, raw fish, like sushi or sashimi, and cheese, both hard and soft also make great pairings.

Bastor Lamontagne has been known for being a light, easy to drink, well-priced Sauternes that offered good value for the money. I'd expect with the Cathiard team fully in charge of the winemaking and vineyard management, Chateau Bastor Lamontagne should start producing better wine in the near future.

One unexpected change was the announcement in 2015 that the Cathiard family, in a partnership with Perrier water, began producing a new, lighter-styled Sauternes, "Bastor Lamontagne SO Sauternes." SO Sauternes is made with grapes from young vines that have less sweetness, and little botrytis. Vinification takes place in stainless steel vats.

The wine is blended with sparkling Perrier water and is intended to be served as a light, sweet drink, in the hopes of developing new, younger customers to wines from the Sauternes region. The logic is that as sweet white Bordeaux wine has become more difficult to sell over the past several years, this could attract new consumers that are not yet experienced with the enjoyment of tasting sweet, white Bordeaux wine.